Czech mate

Prague Travel Blog

Arrived in Prague at 7.30am. I had confidently told the guy in the bed next to me that we didn't get in until 9, so that we had another couple of hours to sleep. Oops. So it turned into a mad rush to get dressed and packed in time for arrival.

Once I had changed some money, I went looking for accomodation. I had planned to go to some hostel with the guy from the train, but I lost him when changing money. He had a map and I didn't, so that was a grave error.

After getting the underground to the old town, I was walking around Prague at 8.30 in the morning with absolutely no idea where to go for tourist information. When I did find the offices and they opened at 9, they were all useless anyway. What made things really bad was the extremely heavy rain that was to be a feature of the day. My shoes, trouser legs and ruck sack got really wet.

So I went for the easy option, a "hostel" in the old town, just round the corner from Old Town Square. Bad choice, very bad indeed. It was like a communist throwback, or a romanian orphanage that we used to see on charity adverts on TV. It gave me the chance to shower and shave, but I resolved not to stay there very long. Found a different hostel on the internet and went to see if they could take me, which they did and so I only had to take my backpack over later and check out from the other place.

After booking the other room, I went back into the town to do some sight-seeing, only to be drenched again in another downpour of biblical proportions. People were just standing around their tour-guides looking stunned by the rain. I found a pizza restaurant and escaped the rain for a while. It had stopped by the time I finished eating.

I walked around the main sites, without really knowing what they were. Damn I wish I hadn't lost the Lonely Planet guide to Eastern Europe. Charles Bridge was predictably busy, but also a let-down. I wanted to take a walking tour but I left it too late, so I checked out from the orphanage and went over to the other hostel.

I met a guy from Scotland in my dorm and once I had tumble-dried my shoes, we went out for food and drinks. My carp meal was the boniest fish experience I've ever had! Drank lots of very cheap beer (six pints between us cost only 4 quid!) and suffered the inevitable consequences.